Mel Griffin on the roots of creativity and the animal side of human behavior

This week on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with ceramic artist Mel Griffin. Her functional pottery and large scale tile work use animal and landscape imagery to talk about human behavior and the way we relate to our surroundings. She says of the work, "Making and drawing allow me to investigate fluid and profound relationships between the body, handmade objects, and landscape, both inside the home and out in the world. Through imagery and metaphor, line and clay, I am exploring the manner in which corporeal experience, mindfulness, memory, and mood combine to create meaning in both everyday and imagined environments."

In the interview we talk about the roots of creativity, incorporating sport as a component of an artistic life and the animal side of human behavior. To find out more about her work please visit her website www.melgriffin.com.

Mel has recently started making large scale tile landscapes composed of animals in fantasy landscapes that reference 19th century naturalist drawings. I enjoyed the way she manipulates scale to recontextualize the significance of the animals in their landscape. The "land before time" landscape above features a massive butterfly that rivals the scale of the neighboring song bird.